13

Kensing was working at the Judah Clinic and didn't seem inclined to return calls, so Hardy decided that he'd simply show up, hoping that his unexpected appearance would help convey the air of urgency he was beginning to feel. So he ventured out into the teeth of the storm and made it to the clinic in time to spend another half hour in the crowded waiting room before Kensing, in his white smock and stethoscope, came out to see him. The doctor told him he couldn't get away, even for a few minutes.

His doctor work was more important. He was swamped here, as Hardy could see. And anyway, wasn't their appointment supposed to be for tonight?

Hardy tried to make him understand the reality they both faced, but the doctor couldn't seem to accept it.

"I don't see how it's any different than it was yesterday," Kensing replied. He made a helpless gesture with his hands.

"Everything about it is different," Hardy explained with a patience he didn't feel. "Yesterday, nobody thought Markham was murdered, so it didn't matter that you hated him. Now it does. A lot. So you've got motive, means, and opportunity. It's bad luck to have all three of these around a homicide, trust me."

But he dismissed Hardy's concerns with a shake of his head. "We covered all this on the phone this morning, didn't we?" He put an arm on Hardy's sleeve. "Look, I appreciate your concern, but I've got to keep things moving here at the clinic or we won't even get to talk tonight. Sorry you had to come all the way down, but this won't work."

Hardy closed some space between them and lowered his voice. "That's what I've been trying to tell you. We're not going to talk tonight, Doctor. At least not with the police. I canceled the interview."

Kensing showed a little pique. "Why'd you do that?"

"Because I'm your lawyer and it's my job to protect you."

"I don't need protection. Once they hear what I've got to say, especially if I give it to them voluntarily, they'll cross me off their list."

"Really? And you know this because of your vast experience in criminal law, is that it?" Hardy was right in his client's face. "Listen to me. I promise you-you have my solemn word-that they will not do that. Don't kid yourself. Like it or not, you are a murder suspect. They won't be looking for reasons to let you off. They'll be looking for reasons to bring you in. And I'm not going to give them a chance to do that. You and I need a lot more time together. A lot more. Like most of the weekend."

Kensing shook his head. "I don't know about that. I've got Giants tickets for Saturday. I've got my kids and I'm taking them."

"That's really swell," Hardy said, "but you're not taking anybody anywhere if you're in jail. The point is you and I need to block some time. This is serious stuff, okay?"

In the waiting room over Kensing's shoulder, a baby began to wail.

Kensing checked his watch, frowned, looked over at the crying infant. "All right," he said, gesturing toward the noise, "but this is serious, too. What I do." He offered a professional smile. "Maybe Sunday, though, how'd that be?" Giving Hardy a conspiratorial pat on the back, he turned and disappeared through the door that led to the doctors' offices.

Hardy, who had walked a block and a half from the parking lot, felt the squish in his soaking shoes, the chill in his pants, damp below the knee. After Kensing left, he sat down for a minute in one of the plastic chairs, then combed his wet hair with his fingers, stood up, and buttoned his raincoat for the walk through the squall back to his car.

"Just checking on my investment," Hardy said when Moses McGuire looked up in surprise from behind the Shamrock's bar. He was the only person in the place.

"What investment? I gave you your quarter in trade, in case your memory fails you, which it never does. You drinking?"

Hardy hadn't had a drink in the daytime in six months, but between his failure to talk with anybody at the hall, Freeman's attitude, the weather, and his recent debacle with Kensing, he was ready to try anything to change his luck or his timing. "You got any Sapphire behind the bar?"

Though McGuire disapproved of gin in any form, he didn't have to ask Hardy how he wanted it. Up, dry, chilled glass. As he was pouring, he asked, "You all right? Frannie okay?" He had pretty much raised his little sister, Hardy's wife, by himself, and he still felt protective.

"We're fine. I had an appointment near here that didn't work out. Nothing to do with Frannie." He sipped his martini, nodded appreciatively. "This," he said, "is perfect."

Moses, whose own Macallan scotch, neat, was a permanent fixture in the bar's gutter, lifted his own glass, clicked it against Hardy's, and raised it to his lips. "That," he replied, "is gin and dry vermouth and ice. This"-holding up his own glass-"is perfect. But I accept the compliment with grace and humility. Why didn't you have him come to your office?"

"Who?"

"Your appointment. I didn't know you made house calls."

"I don't. This one seemed important."

"Well, to one of you, at least."

At that truth, Hardy nodded ruefully. "Then again, maybe I just needed an excuse to break up the routine."

Moses pulled up the stool he kept behind the bar. "I hear you," he said. "You want to plan a road trip? We leave now, we could be in Mexico by nightfall."

"Don't tempt me." Hardy lifted his drink, sipped at it, spoke wistfully. "Maybe I could pull the kids out of school…"

"I wasn't thinking of bringing the offspring with us."

Hardy noted the tone, looked at the battered face across the bar. "You and Susan okay?"

"At least we're not getting divorced, I don't think." He drank some of his scotch. "But sometimes I'm sure it's only because we made a deal that the first one to mention the D word gets the kids. I hear Mexico's warm this time of year."

"It's always warmer than here."

They both looked out the picture window, where the rain continued in sheets. The cypress trees that bordered the park were bent over halfway in the wind.

Abruptly, Hardy stood up. He pushed his unfinished martini to the edge of the bar.

"You leaving so soon?" McGuire asked him. "You just got here."

Hardy pointed to his drink. "If I finish that, and I desperately want to, I'll never leave."

"Fortunately, you don't have to."

"No, I do have to. I've got work and the devil's trying to give me an excuse not to do it. But I've got an idea for you and Susan. Why don't you get somebody to cover for you here and bring the kids over tonight. We'll take 'em. You guys go out. How's that sound?"

"It could work," McGuire said. "Though it isn't Mexico."

"Yeah, but what is?" Hardy laid a friendly punch on McGuire's arm. "Think about it."

Standing in front of the grand jury after a working lunch with Clarence Jackman and Abe Glitsky, Marlene Ash was in her element. The nineteen citizens gathered before her in the Police Commissioner's Hearing Room on the fifth floor of the Hall of Justice, one floor above Glitsky's office and two above Jackman's, cared mightily for justice to be done. They might appear to be a hodgepodge of humanity-certainly both genders and most of the ethnic populations in the city were represented here today-but Marlene knew that these people sitting now before her, and the others like them on juries (and not just grand juries) all over the country, were the backbone of the legal system she worked within. Without them, the "average" good citizen, justice would be an empty concept, the social fabric would tear.